What is family detention?
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Who is being held?

Previously, when the influx of Central American families began, ICE was releasing mothers with children at the border with notices to appear in immigration court. To stop that practice, the government began holding as many families as they could at the South Texas detention centers and ordered immigration judges to expedite the deportation cases of unaccompanied minors and mothers with children.

“In order to avoid a situation, after apprehension, in which we simply processed these individuals, escorted them to bus stations and released them, we increased our detention capacity,” Homeland security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a June 2016 announcement about changes to family detention.

Why are they coming?
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Why is family detention so unpopular?

Immigration advocates have been highly critical of the family detention policy, in part because the vast majority of those held at the detention centers are seeking asylum.
“These folks have not broken the law by coming to the United States,” said Joanne Kelsey, assistant director for advocacy at Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services. “It’s international and U.S. law that, if you’re fleeing harm, you can come to our borders and ask for protection.

On top of that, they say the U.S. shouldn’t be keeping families that are fleeing violence in jail-like conditions.
“The real crux of the problem here is these are secure facilities holding traumatized children and their mothers,” said Denise Gilman, the co-director of the University of Texas Law School’s Immigration Clinic.

. U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee ruled that by holding children in an facility that’s unlicensed and “secure,” meaning they can’t leave, the government is violating a 1997 settlement governing the treatment of immigrant children.
Immigration officials “must release an accompanying parent as long as doing so would not create a flight risk or a safety risk,” Gee wrote.

In his announcement, made before Gee’s ruling, Johnson said families that aren’t flight risks or national security threats will be released after completing the first stage of the asylum process, but advocates said that can take weeks and even months.

What has the government done to comply?
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What are the alternatives?

While the government hasn’t tracked whether families have shown up in court, advocates say they have an incentive to appear before a judge so they can win their asylum cases and live legally in the U.S. However, they say, lack of access to lawyers and confusing bureaucracies make the court system difficult to navigate.

In some cases, ICE is putting ankle monitors on the mothers it releases.
Advocates have called for a system similar to pre-trial release in criminal courts, where families would comply with measures like regularly checking in with an ICE officer while living in the U.S. until their case is decided.